


Self Erasure

by echolaliating



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aromantic, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Character Study, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:20:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7344637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echolaliating/pseuds/echolaliating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything goes topsy turvy, you are left trying to figure out how everything went wrong, and you come to the conclusion that it was all you. Everything you did was wrong, and the only way to make it right was to erase everything about yourself, and become anyone else besides Jake English</p>
<p>A Jake English character study</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self Erasure

When everything was over, you found yourself laying on a stone slab, with Jane laying only a few feet from you.

You feel nasty, and awful, and completely alone. You can tell she’s messaging someone, and you instantly know its Dirk. (It can’t be anyone else, because Roxy is dead now) 

They’re talking about you, obviously, about everything you did wrong, every time you messed up, every time you hurt them. And when you tally up every mistake you made, why wouldn’t they be sick of you? Who even needs you anyways?

You don’t remember the past few hours very well, but you remember that you got dumped, that Jane hates you, and that you don’t know a single person who wants you right now.

It’s a relief that Dirk dumped you. All you had wanted was to go back to how things used to be, when you were all chums, before all the feelings complicated everything and made it all so confusing. It’s obvious now that the damage was irreparable, and now you had nothing left. 

You’d like to talk to someone about all of this, but the only people you have to talk to are Dirk and Jane, who you can’t talk to, for obvious reasons. You miss Grandma, who always knew what to do, and you miss Roxy, who always knew how to cheer you up. 

So instead, you stew in your thoughts alone, trying to figure out where things went completely topsy-turvy. Your brain spins, spitting out images and feelings and you can’t latch onto your own thoughts, can’t put any of it in words, can’t describe it. You certainly can’t put a finger on a single instance where it all goes helter-skelter. 

All you can think, is that it was all you. Everything you did was wrong, and everything about you was wrong. Everything needed to change. With no one but your own jumbled thoughts to make sense of it all, you conclude that the best way for you to make up for everything you did was to become anyone else besides Jake English.

~

The game was over, and you’re all about to end the new universe, and hopefully be free from this nightmare forever. Everyone is excited about the future, and you try to get excited too. All you feel though is the anxiety thrumming through you, knotting up in your insides and reminding you of all the new ways you can fuck it all up for everyone else. Changing everything about yourself was overwhelmingly difficult.

Roxy is here, and alive, and it’s amazing. She keeps trying to get your attention for some reason. Maybe her Jake wasn’t as bad as you were, which was just more reason to avoid her. She’s also talking to Dirk, prodding at him and pushing him to “just talk to him goddammit”. 

Eventually, Dirk catches you, and surprises you by apologizing. “I shouldn’t have broken up with you when I did. You weren’t in the right state of mind, and you couldn’t stand up for yourself. It was unbelievably shitty of me to take advantage of that and break it off.”

You laugh it off, because it’s so Dirk to assume responsibility for everything that went wrong. You never should have let yourself get in this position, never should have promised to give what you were never confident you could. There’s no reason Dirk could have expected that you couldn’t give even the simplest gestures expected in a romantic relationship. That even small touches would make you feel like a TV antenna on the fritz, that making a move would never even register as a possibility in your mind, that any kind of emotional intimacy was so alien and daunting that your first instinct was to pull away and hide forever.

It’s too much work to fix someone so broken and the effort not worth it for someone so meaningless, a side note in the story of people far more important. It was best to just delete it all and start over.

~

You spend a lot of time exploring the new world, eager to find a way to help the others that doesn’t involve spending time with anyone else. The world is huge, bigger than anything you’ve ever dreamed. You can spend an eternity exploring every nook and cranny and not find everything. You go months without seeing another person and it feels great. It’s safe, and familiar and comfortable and you dread going back to the uncertainty and confusion that comes with other people.

You’re supposed to be sending updates on your findings, but you’re never confident that what you find interesting or important is anything that actually matters to the others. The process of sending the updates taxes you, as you have to carefully read through every correspondence, looking for anything that sounds annoying or dumb or makes you look like you’re bragging, and reword it endlessly. The words get stuck inside your brain, like an insect petrified in amber, and don’t come out, even though you know exactly the meaning you want to get across. The times between updates get longer and longer, and it gets harder and harder to convince yourself to go back.

You erase yourself, piece by piece. You become hypervigilant of when people around you are irritated, upset, express anything beyond mild indifference, and search for the cause (A pointless task, because it always boils down to you. You’re always the problem.)

You notice how much everyone hates the movies you like, and try to like better ones. You have no idea what makes a good movie though, and you have no idea what standard people are judging it by. Every time you watch a movie now, you get so stressed out trying to properly assess the true quality that you don’t enjoy a single moment of the experience.

You eventually stop watching movies all together. 

The way you talk is annoying. You speak less and less as time goes on.

The way you dress is embarrassing. You get rid of everything, and wear only the safest, plainest and most modest clothing you can.

You agree with everyone, and when people get mad at you for agreeing with the wrong person, you stop. You don’t give input one way or the other, and when directly asked your opinion you shrug and say you don’t know enough to know.

You start to wonder what’s the point of someone as empty and meaningless as you in existing, and stare for too long at treacherous abyss’ and deadly cliffs. You decide that dying would be an inconvenience to the people you leave behind and there was no reason to make the others grieve over something so inconsequential. The risks you take on expeditions get more and more fool-hardy, though, and while you don’t actively seek out death, but you don’t try very hard to stay alive either. 

You’re succeeding in becoming a new person, but you’re not actually sure who that is. You don’t really feel real anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a really personal piece for me and really cathartic to write. I wasn't sure if I wanted to post it, but I thought if anyone else could relate, it would be worth it to post
> 
> I might do a followup on this and give it a happy ending but no promises


End file.
